The First Law of Thermodynamics
by justrumbelledearie
Summary: Energy can be transformed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. Or, the story of how one exceedingly disagreeable Oxford physics major loses his belt and his virginity during office hours.


"Shut the door, Nicholas."

Professor French is bent over a considerable pile of term papers, her red pen poised in midair. Her small office, located on the third floor of the English Faculty St. Cross Building, is littered with the sort of idiotic tchotchkes that young professors typically leave lying around for their students to muck about with: stress balls for squeezing and kinetic motion devices for clacking and silly putty for stretching and tiny magnets for building tiny, magnetic structures.

Glancing around the cramped, stuffy little room, Nicholas Rush feels certain that should he move one single book from its precarious position on one single, sagging bookshelf, the whole mess would come tumbling down on top of his head.

"What's this about again?"

He lingers just outside the door frame, removing his wire-rimmed eyeglasses and cleaning them vigorously with his shirttail.

"This is about your final paper, Nicholas. Come in, please. Shut the door behind you."

Sighing, he settles his glasses back onto the high bridge of his nose, then steps inside and pulls the office door shut with a quiet click.

"Have a seat."

Professor French gestures distractedly to a large armchair in the corner of the office. It is overstuffed, piled high with frowzy pillows, and upholstered in a whimsical, pink paisley print. Just beside it, resting discreetly on top of a low side table, is a cardboard box of facial tissues. Rush shudders inwardly at the thought of the many multitudes of students who have sniveled and groveled and wept over their final grades in this very corner. Instead, he selects a ladder-backed chair made of polished, knotty pine and positions it across from her desk. He slumps down into it, dropping his frayed knapsack onto the floor and exhaling loudly.

"My final paper should have satisfied all of your rubric's requirements," he says. His eyes flit impatiently to the clock on his professor's desk.

"Yes, it most certainly did. To a tee. And that, Nicholas," she replies archly, "is precisely what I would like to speak to you about."

Professor French scribbles one brief, final comment on the term paper in front of her, then straightens upright at her desk, giving him her full attention. She smiles.

"Your final essay was one of the finest pieces of student writing I've had the pleasure of reading whilst at Oxford. Your thinking was highly original. Your approach to Robert Frost and his preoccupation with boundaries, walls, and spatial limits was truly exceptional. It was a graduate-level analysis. I gave you top marks and turned in your final grade in this morning. You passed my course, Nicholas."

"Yes, I realize that. Well, if that's really all, professor…"

He begins to stand, pressing his hands to his knees and blowing out another weary, exasperated breath. Beneath him, the wooden chair creaks in protest.

"That isn't all. Please sit."

Professor French regards him calmly, her blue eyes clear and resolute. Reluctantly, he settles back into his uncomfortable seat.

"You passed my course, but only _just_. It seems to me that you must have calculated precisely what you did and did not need to do in order for your marks never to fall below 54%. Your previous essays were rubbish—just boiled down, lackluster dreck, and when given the simple task of recitation, you selected a nine line ditty. You prepared 'Fire and Ice,' when you clearly know Frost's longer works slantways, sideways, and upside down. Why exactly are you here, Nicholas?'

"Because you told me to wait by your office after class."

She laughs, shaking her head. "No, you comprehend my meaning perfectly well. Why did _you,_ a dual major in physics and computer science, elect to attend an American Literature course that clearly does not interest you?"

After a pause, he shrugs his hunched shoulders, staring hard at the carpet. "I'm here because I need to meet a minimum course distribution requirement in the Humanities before I graduate in the spring. More importantly, my second job is only a ten minute walk from the St. Cross building. I'm here on scholarship, and I work at a sandwich shop down on Holywell Street in the evenings to make ends meet. So American Literature was simply—convenient. My apologies."

Rush reaches for the silly putty on the desk in front of him and begins to methodically flatten it out with his fingers. He glares at the soft, flesh-colored toy as though he would very much like to burn holes through it with his eyes. After a long moment, he glances up. "Am I free to go now, Professor French?"

"You are no longer my student, Nicholas. You may do precisely as you wish. You may even drop the tedious formality and call me Belle, if you would like. Many of my former students do so. However, I would much prefer it if you would stay and answer another question for me."

She stands slowly and walks out from behind her wide, cluttered desk.

"The points I awarded for attendance and class participation this semester were negligible. Only ten points out of several hundred that were potentially available for papers and exams. You could have easily made up those ten points elsewhere. So tell me, why did you have perfect attendance, Nicholas?"

His nostrils flare, and his fretful hands go perfectly still. A deep crease forms between his dark, ungroomed eyebrows.

Now he is merely gripping the silly putty, his thumbnails digging deep, anxious trenches. Involuntarily, Rush glances over to where his professor is leaning against her desk. His furtive eyes are immediately drawn to the generous expanse of bare leg and to the red, spike-heeled, peep-toe pumps she wears.

"Forgive me for being indelicate by pointing out the obvious," Belle continues softly, "but you clearly could do with more sleep, more food, and a healthy dose of fresh air. And yet, here you sat, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, listening to lectures on Melville, Faulkner, and Frost that held no interest for you."

Rush's eyes, accustomed to the drab dual-tones of whiteboard equations and bland, laborious binary code, are now drawn to the hem of Belle's floral pencil skirt.

It slashes across her pale, shapely legs just above the kneecap, covering her lap and thighs in a field of bright, red poppies. He swallows hard and scrubs a hand over his prickly jawline. His rib cage suddenly feels much too narrow to house both his lungs and his rapidly beating heart.

_Sotto voce, _he mutters, "Who says I wasn't interested?"

The retort is a fragile, tiny nothing, spat out upon the office floor.

At last, his brown eyes flick away from Belle's inviting lap and legs and toes and shoes, and he begins to twist the smooth, pink putty in his fingers once more.

"Ah," she says softly, "I thought as much."

Still leaning against her cluttered desk, Belle reaches out and places a warm hand over his fidgety fingers. He draws in a deep breath.

"I want to tell you something important, Nicholas," she says, tilting her heart-shaped face sideways, trying to catch his downcast eyes. "Or, more accurately, I'd like to tell my twenty year-old _self_ something very important, but I'll address it to you instead." She smiles at him kindly, but he does not see it. His gaze is steadily fixed upon her hand in his lap, covering his white knuckles, her painted thumbnail brushing over the ink-stained skin of his left forefinger.

Belle leans in closer.

"We're quite similar, you and I, though I doubt you can see it now. We both came to Oxford on scholarship at a rather young age. We're both highly driven, extremely focused—perhaps obsessively so—willing to make any sacrifice to achieve the goals we set out for ourselves. I've read your personal statement, Nicholas. I know that you want to enter the Ancient Technologies program this fall and also to complete a third major this summer. And as for me—well, you don't become a tenured professor of literature at Oxford University prior to the age of thirty by living a particularly _balanced_ life."

She chuckles to herself, and he lifts his sharp, stubbled chin to catch the levity in her voice and the gaiety playing around the corners of her lovely, blue eyes.

_This_ was what he most enjoyed during her thrice-weekly lectures.

The way Belle's merry, agile mind would dance around a topic, breathing life and purpose and mirth into every sentence, offering her laughter, her easy smiles, her cheeky asides, simply _caring_ more than he ever would about the intricacies of literature and the human spirit.

Yes, Rush very much enjoyed _that_—and he also enjoyed the plump curve of her calves, the ripe, feminine outsweep of her hips, the gleaming auburn curls that tumbled down over her right shoulder, the delectable fullness of her flushed cheeks, and the way her pink lips plucked and shaped poetry from midair. Also—_okay,_ _yes, especially_—her tiny, arched feet, always on display in a dazzling array of colorful, three-inch spiked heels.

Glad to have finally found his eyes, Belle elaborates: "You know, often I would wish I could simply _sever_ myself from my physical body. _Why_ must I get tired? _Why_ must I halt everything just to get some horrid, bland little meal from the campus cafeteria? Why couldn't I simply be a disembodied intellect—consuming books, writing papers, finally bloody _getting somewhere?_ "

Rush nods. His mouth waters at the very thought of it.

Yes, he has fought this battle.

She squeezes his hands, then plucks the putty from his fingers and places it back upon her desk.

"See, what I couldn't grasp back during my hectic Uni days is that there can _be_ no mind without the body. If you want to do stunning, original, ground-breaking work, you must attend to the body and all of its physiological needs. Those eighteen hour marathons the computer science students pride themselves so much on? They result in reams of code—reams of code absolutely riddled with errors. Work done on minimal sleep and an empty belly _always_ suffers, regardless of the heft of your intellect. If you want to reach great heights, Nicholas, you _must_ attend to the body."

Her thumb skims lightly over the back of his knuckles.

Rush sighs, disappointed and more than a little exasperated, not at all appreciating the denouement of this predictable lecture.

"Well, that's easy to say when you're—" He trails off, gathering his jumbled thoughts, trying to ignore the distracting, ticklish sensation of her warm skin against his skin. He glances downwards at their joined hands—and also glances at his meager chest, concealed beneath a worn, moss green t-shirt that he picked up ages ago on clearance.

He grits his teeth and presses ahead.

"Look, I'm 5'7" with shoes on. I weigh nine stone soaking wet. I'm so nearsighted I could barely read what you wrote on the bloody whiteboard—_from the bloody front row._ I get splitting headaches. My body has _always_ been a burden. It won't ever be anything more."

Belle listens to him thoughtfully. She selects her next words with great precision and care. "I wonder—did you notice the young woman with the strawberry blond hair and the violin case? The one who always sat directly behind you in class? I would posit that _she_ doesn't find your body too burdensome to look at."

"What?" He startles, then firmly shakes his head. _"No._ I didn't. And I'm not interested in some _Fine Arts major,_ thank you very much. What I'm interested in is—" He abruptly bites his tongue, looking away. Agitation ripples across the surface of his pale skin.

"I know. What you're interested in is me."

There isn't a hint of triumph in these gently-spoken words. When Rush gathers his courage and glances over to read her expression, Belle's blue eyes are meltingly soft.

She smiles at him, then resolutely releases his hands and pushes herself away from her wide desk, crossing the room behind him, heading for the office door.

Rush sighs, cursing inwardly. Another romantic disappointment.

Another crushing humiliation.

He pushes his wire-rimmed eyeglasses back up the bridge of his nose, then begins to gather up his things to go.

Behind his chair, he hears a soft _click._

The deadbolt on Belle's office door slides discreetly into place.

It may as well have been a thunderous shotgun _clap_ announcing the beginning of a horse race. Within his tight chest, Rush's heart takes off at a frantic gallop. The room is suddenly too hot, too small, too crowded. His professor is too corporal, too near, too beautiful.

She is standing directly behind his chair.

"I'd like to entrust you with one final lesson, Nicholas." Belle's warm breath ruffles the brown wisps of hair that brush over the tip of his right ear. "Is that the sort of thing you might be interested in?"

"Aye," he agrees roughly. Her proximity makes him momentarily forget his determination to leave Glasgow and its throaty gutter vowels behind him—to become a cultured, right-speaking Oxford scholar by habit and sheer force of will.

"Splendid," she says. Her own vowels emerge clipped and elegant.

Belle circles slowly around to stand in front of him, nudging his bony knees apart with her smooth, bare legs, and Rush is suddenly, gloriously, deliriously adrift in a sea of bright, red poppies.

"Your final lesson will be…"

She bends forward and recaptures his hands, lifting them to the hem of her pencil skirt, then sliding them slowly upwards, drawing the clinging, floral fabric up to mid-thigh. Her skin is hot beneath the pads of his fingers, creamy-plush and soft as satin.

The blood sings so loudly in Rush's beet red ears and pulses so painfully in his lap that he nearly misses the next few whispered words: "Your final lesson will be…_be bold, Nicholas_."

She inches his fingers higher and higher and higher still, dragging her tight skirt up along with them, until, together, they finally reach the delicate, elastic waistband of her lace knickers. Belle's underthings are flimsy, sheer, and blue as a summer sky. "You are truly extraordinary, but—truly, Nicholas—the universe waits for no man."

He jerks his chin up and down at the sentiment, staring straight ahead at the triangle of springy, dark curls pressing out against the gauzy, blue fabric, beautifully framed by a drawn-up curtain of bright, red poppies and milky-white skin.

Oh, this is an extremely good lesson.

The best one he's ever been bloody offered, in actual fact.

His breathing has grown so rapid and shallow that Rush has begun to feel light-headed—woozy almost. The slender, elastic waistband is searing the crooks of his fingers, and his virgin prick is swelling up within his jeans, yet there is no place for it to go.

Belle whispers, "Now—_take them off me."_

He has not heard this voice before: hushed, resonant, and forceful.

He immediately aches to hear it again.

"Aye," he agrees once more. His voice is too thick and garbled for his own liking. Too uncertain and needful. Nicholas Rush, who has always prized certainty, has not been handed the script for this particular scene from his brief, carefully controlled life.

He complies with shaking, eager fingers, easing the lace knickers down over Belle's plump, perfect arse, then over her exquisite, white thighs, down, down past the bunched hem of her captivating floral skirt. When he finally reaches her dainty kneecaps, he glances up, and she nods reassuringly, passing her tongue hungrily over her dry bottom lip, devouring him with a white-hot look.

Rush slides himself off the edge of his wooden chair, going down on both knees to guide the lace knickers along Belle's bare shins, all the way down to the carpeted floor. He is only scant inches away from her red, spike-heeled pumps, so glossy and carnal as to be almost obscene. He has a sudden, mad wish to bite them, to be ordered to polish them with his lips and tongue until they gleam.

Belle steps free of the flimsy, blue lace, smiling down at him. Her face is half in shadow, hidden by a gleaming curtain of dark curls.

"You did that beautifully," she says. "Now stand up."

Reluctantly, he straightens up in front of her, wrenching his eyes away from her tempting shoes. He longs to cover up the painful hump in his denim trousers with crossed hands, but decides that a clumsy attempt at camouflage would likely prove far more embarrassing than seeing the fabric obscenely stretched and tented.

"This next part is very important, Nicholas, so you must answer me honestly. Precisely which areas of knowledge are you lacking in?"

His eyes fly away from her, searching for a high shelf to hide on. "I'm lacking in, ah, all areas of knowledge. Pertaining to this, I mean. Actually, I'm—ah, a blank slate."

She nods, considering this information silently, rising up on tiptoe to perch her shapely bottom upon the edge of her desk. Seated, she reaches out to take hold of his bent elbows, gently drawing him closer. "Is there any particular area of study you'd like to delve into first?" She lifts a hand to his soft t-shirt, pressing her palm to his thudding heart, brushing a painted thumbnail slowly over his left nipple.

Rush swallows.

"I want to know _everything."_

Belle beams as if he has said something especially clever.

"Good student. I think that can be arranged. But how about we begin with a simple demonstration, followed by some hands-on experimentation? I always find that the scientific process solidifies concepts far better than lecture alone, wouldn't you agree?"

He nods, his mouth gone horribly dry.

Rush is trying to concentrate on the hypnotic tug and scrape of her thumbnail, tracing light circles around his tightly puckered nipple. With her free hand, Belle reaches out to brush his overgrown hair back from his eyes. She smiles at his parted lips, his tented trousers, and his glassy, hooded expression.

"Suck my fingers, Nicholas."

"Wha—?" His mouth opens to ask her _what—why?_ and Belle nimbly presses the tips of two warm fingers to his bottom lip, pulling it down gently, exposing his pink gums and crooked teeth.

"Suck my fingers because I told you to—and because I need hot, slippery fingers to get myself off."

His nostrils flare in shock, but his mouth opens wider. Belle's fingers slip slowly inside, ghosting over the wet-velvet heat of his tongue.

"Get them wet. Use your lips."

His brown eyes flicker shut, and he concentrates on sucking his way up to the very base of her fingers, then lapping in between them, vigorously bathing the tops of Belle's small knuckles, then all along their creased, soft bottoms. He can hear her sharp intake of breath when his suction becomes tighter, and then there is a quiet, mechanical _click,_ and—opening his eyes—Rush realizes that Belle has switched on the small radio on top of her desk. It is tuned to the campus station. Classical music for the Oxford snobs.

She turns it up.

"Just a bit of cover," she explains, smiling impishly, "In case we feel the need to make some noise."

Rush grunts around her fingers, sucking harder.

"Perfect. Well done, Nicholas. Watch me now."

She pulls her fingers free of his mouth and tugs her skirt up higher, parting her legs and leaning back against her cluttered desktop. Propped up by one arm, Belle brushes her wet fingertips through the matted curls between her thighs, watching his rapt expression.

"To properly bring a woman off," she says, lightly stroking herself, "Truly bring her off, not just serve as a willing masturbatory aide, you'll need to use a bit of misdirection. Do you see this small, pink nub up at the very top?" She boldly parts her fleshy outer lips with two fingers, and Rush nods, his face on fire.

Oh yes, he sees it.

"Never approach this spot directly. What you want to do is _tease."_

She circles the pink nub with a wet finger, never quite touching it. "Make me wonder if you'll ever give me what I need. Make me crave a steady, quick rhythm—but withhold it for as long as you can. Withhold it until I'm absolutely _begging_ you for it."

Rush stares, hypnotized, while Belle circles and shudders and strokes. He watches her pink flesh begin to glisten and flush a deeper shade of red. The arm supporting her weight begins to tremble.

"Unbutton my top, Nicholas," she grits out after several glorious minutes of thrusting and rubbing and teasing have passed, "Touch my breasts. Tease me. Please, I want you to pinch the tips and suck them hard. Ah—but you must make me beg for it…"

With shaking, uncertain fingers he unfastens Belle's white cotton blouse. The task is made all the more difficult by the needy little jerks her body is making when she thrusts between her spread legs, dipping in deeper and deeper, then brushing up just to the side of the engorged, pink nub.

At last, he manages to part the material and stare his fill at the sheer, blue lace that supports her rounded, bobbing breasts. Tentatively, he reaches out to touch one, biting his tongue and holding his breath, and Belle moans, nodding her approval.

_"Ah, yes!—_cup it. Make me want your touch. _Ah, God!_ Now use the fabric to tease me—pull it down lower, Nicholas. I need you to suck them a little for me…_please_…"

He does precisely as she says, marveling at the soft warmth of her flesh and the breathy little gasps he is able to draw from her parted lips. He cups Belle's left breast, then bends down to tug the hard little nipple up between his lips, gripping the desk with one hand while she groans and clutches the back of his neck, begging him, _"Harder."_

He is sucking for all he's worth, and she is arching and panting beneath him, and then Rush feels the wet nipple torn from his mouth and a pair of hands frantically working at his wide leather belt, tugging the metal buckle loose, jerking it roughly from the denim loops, tossing it to the floor, and unzipping his fly.

"Fuck me over the desk, Nicholas. _I need it."_

Her hair and eyes are wild. Belle slips down off the edge of the desk and turns around to bend over it, her skirt still up around her waist.

_"Fuck me._ Don't hold back. I'm almost there. I'm on birth control."

She parts her legs, bracing against the desk, waiting for him, her arse plump and perfect and beautifully spread, and Rush struggles with his denim trousers only for a moment, pushing them down around his pale thighs, grasping his prick, doing his utmost to line it up, then cursing when it doesn't slide smoothly in."

"You're doing fine. Use both hands. Put it in me."

Belle has the heels of her hands planted against the wide desk, and she carefully meets his next guided thrust—and then Nicholas Rush is no longer a virgin. He aching prick is surrounded by tight, heavenly heat, and he is deep, deep inside Belle—about to spill himself on the very first thrust.

"Cup me. Both places," she gasps, and he quickly slips a hand between her legs and another one over her right breast, managing not to come only by focusing on the contrast between coarse curls and satiny flesh. Draped over her hot back, he moves slowly, but Belle is thrusting hard back against him, creating friction, gripping him tightly.

"It's happening," he grits out, as soon as he knows that it is, "God, it's fucking happening—I can't stop it. _I'm going to come…"_

She doesn't seem to hear him, lost in her own urgent rhythm—and then they are both crying out, jerking and arching and trembling. Rush hides his face against her shoulder until it is completely over, groaning and thrusting his way through it, shaking horribly—and then their lesson is truly finished. Belle is straightening up and turning around, and he is reluctantly slipping loose from her.

A soft knock comes at the office door.

"Just one moment," Belle calls out breathlessly, tugging her skirt down and hastily buttoning up her wrinkled blouse. Rush pulls up his denim trousers and gingerly zips the fly.

"When can I see you again?" he asks quietly, stooping over to pick up his knapsack, openly staring at her cherry-red shoes.

Belle smiles widely, then opens her office door to greet the waiting student. It is the young lady with the violin case. The girl ducks shyly past Rush, taking a seat in the upholstered chair and tucking a lock of strawberry blond hair behind her ear.

"How about we resume our independent study, ah—let's say same time next week, Nicholas?" Belle offers brightly. Before the other student can take notice, she discreetly kicks Rush's leather belt beneath her desk. "I will truly be looking forward it."

"As will I," Rush replies.

His face flushed and hair disheveled, he disappears out the office door.


End file.
